Arizona Cardinals fans don't mind losses, but not losses like they had to the Bucs

SB Nation’s FanPulse is back for 2019 and it is bigger and better than ever. If you have missed out on signing up, don’t worry, there is still plenty of time for you to be part of the Revenge of the Birds FanPulse and weigh-in on all the Arizona Cardinals topics.

Fandom is honest.

Especially when you have only a short time to react.

While this season was undoubtedly looked at as a rebuild, seeing what Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray have done with the offense has changed expectations.

The expectations is what drives confidence.

When you see the Arizona Cardinals lose a close game to the undefeated 49ers, you feel like the direction of the team is pointing the right way.

When you blow a lead against a bad team on the road, confidence drops.

That is where the Cardinals are now.

The expectations have changed and now losing to other bad teams is not okay, while losing to good teams, as long as it is close, shows you the direction is right.

After getting the confidence back up to 80%, the confidence in the direction of the Arizona Cardinals is back down to 63%.

It makes sense, but it still needs to be looked at through the lens of the Cardinals are building towards 2020 and beyond.

However, when you look at teams like the Oakland Raiders you want to see the Cardinals on the same trajectory.

One of the FanPulse questions this week was what team that is on the fringe do you see making the playoffs and the winner by a slim margin was the Oakland Raiders.

That’s where Cardinals fans want to be, they want to be back on the fringe of the playoffs and then move into the next group.

What NFL game are you most looking forward to for the rest of 2019 and the overwhelming favorite was the Kansas City Chiefs at New England Patriots.

Maybe the Cardinals will be on the first question in 2020 and in 2021 they are taking the main stage where fans can’t wait to see Kyler vs Russ or Kyler vs Lamar.

We can only hope that the 63% that are confident in the direction of the team is right.